(21 Aug. 1886-30 May 1976), clergyman. (Charles F. Gauthier, C.F. Gauthier, Father Charlie, Father Gauthier) Born in the 4th Concession of Kenyon Township, near Alexandria, GC. Parents: J.N. Gauthier and his wife Janet McKinnon. Education: local schools, Loyola College, University of Ottawa, Grand Seminary in Montreal. He was ordained to the priesthood 20 Dec. 1913 in the Basilica, Ottawa, by his uncle C.H. Gauthier, archbishop of Ottawa. (Glengarry News 19 & 26 Dec. 1913) In Cornwall, he served as curate at St. Columban’s. Afterwards, he was pastor of St. Finnan’s from 1916 to 1922 (at this time the title rector was not yet in use at the cathedral). In the following years, he was pastor at Greenfield from 1922 to 1933, at Apple Hill from 1933 to 1947, and at Lochiel from 1947 to 1967. As pastor at Greenfield, he was responsible also for Maxville, which did not have parish status till 1946. In retirement from parish duties, he was chaplain of St. Joseph’s Villa, Cornwall, from 1969 to 1971. From 1971 till his death, he was a patient in Macdonell Memorial Hospital, Cornwall. He observed the 60th anniversary of his ordination, Oct. 1973, at Macdonell Memorial Hospital. He died at Macdonell Memorial Hospital, and is buried in the Gauthier plot, St. Finnan’s cemetery.
As a student Fr Gauthier was active as an athlete in sports including lacrosse, in which he was remembered to have excelled, and soccer . As a priest he was tireless over many years in encouraging sports including soccer and hockey among the boys and young men of his parishes. His work in sports brought him in contact with many young Protestants. The sports grounds near St. Alexander’s Church, Lochiel, were given the name of the Father Gauthier recreation centre in his honour. Fr Gauthier was caught up in the linguistic and ethnic conflicts of the diocese. According to his sister Kathleen, to whom he was always very much a hero, he volunteered to become priest at Lochiel at a time of strife and tension in that parish, hoping to be a peacemaker at whatever cost to his own well-being. He was a Francophone, but Choquette (p. 43), speaking of the period about 1921, holds he lacked complete fluency in French. Fr Gauthier was active in the ecumenical movement long before it became official policy in the church. (See also the life of his uncle Archbishop Gauthier) He had innumerable friends and acquaintances among Protestants. There were few people in GC who did not know him to see him. He must have been the most widely-known GC parish clergyman of his time. While paying his pastoral visits to his Catholic parishioners, he often visited the Protestants of the neighbourhood as well (the present author has personal recollections of this). He was a well-known speaker at Protestant church socials. To some Protestant surprise, he used to rent the Orange Hall at McCrimmon to hold fund-raising dances for his parish at Lochiel. In his later years, the term “Pastor of Glengarry” was applied to him. A saintly, gregarious, rather eccentric man, he was forceful and hyperactive. He had serious ulcer problems, was said to have had problems with alcohol, and to have sometimes had psychiatric problems. In appearance he was a gargoyle-like “Dickensian” figure, like a large, rotund, opinionated, strong-minded elf. Perhaps after all he was the nearest GC has come to having a saint. Two newspaper items will survive as guides to why this unusual and remarkable man was seen as important by his contemporaries: Eugene Macdonald’s editorial tribute, “A Diamond for His Crown,” and Angus H. Macdonell’s eloquent reflections on his death. (Glengarry News 1 Nov. 1973, 3 June 1976) His friends regretted that he did not receive the title of Monsignor.
His sister Kathleen Teresa Gauthier (died 27 Sept. 1988, aged 96), (Kathleen Gauthier) trained as a nurse in New York City and practised as a nurse there before returning to GC to serve for many years as her brother’s housekeeper, and as organist and choir director in his parishes at Greenfield, Apple Hill and Lochiel. Unlike her brother, she was little known to the public outside the parishes where her brother was pastor. To the Protestants, she was probably barely known except as a name. She was blind in her last years, which she spent at St. Joseph’s Villa, Cornwall. She died at Hotel Dieu Hospital, Cornwall. In an interview recorded in probably 1979 she expressed her unhappiness that she and her brother had, as she felt, had been badly treated because they were, as she defined the situation, not sufficiently French Canadian.
Glengarry News 3 June-1 July 1976, with tributes by Angus H. McDonell, Eugene Macdonald (Rambling Reporter column), “Anna Margaret” (Mrs Anna Margaret MacDonald), J.J. McCormick * Vankleek Hill Review 9 June 1976 * sports biography, probably by Angus H. McDonell, GN 13 June 1979 * Villeneuve 31, 62-63 and other refs.* printed parish histories for biog. information, portraits * personal information * MacMillan Soccer (portraits) * Maxville (1991) 199 * Lochinvar to Skye 573 * Dr Norbert Ferré, “The Gauthiers of Glengarry,” Glengarry Life 1978 * interview with his sister Kathleen Gauthier recorded 4 July (1979?) for the Multicultural History Society of Ontario * Choquette * Butternuts and Maple Sugar 201 * recollected by Mgr Donald B. McDougald, “Reflections on the Fourth of Kenyon,” Glengarry Life 1995, and by Mrs Anna Margaret MacDonald, Glengarry News 22 Aug. 2001 * obituary of Kathleen Teresa Gauthier, GN 19 Oct. 1988 * honoured with presentation by his parishioners at St. Finnan’s, is manager of newly organized hockey club, GN 16 Dec. 1921 * transferred to Greenfield, GN 22 Sept. 1923 * Fr Gauthier is first to have radio installed in Greenfield district, GN 6 April 1923 * text of address presented by his parishioners at Apple Hill on the 25th anniversary of his ordination, GN 25 Nov. 1938 * transferred to Lochiel, GN 11 April, 2 May 1947 * Golden Anniversary of his ordination, GN 12 Sept. 1963 * remembered teaching Highland dancing while young priest at St. Finnan’s, GN 10 June 1976